Responsible research assessment
Building a narrative CV (R4RI)
UKRI's Résumé for Research and Innovation has been mandatory across all UKRI funding since January 2024. Royal Society and Wellcome use closely-related formats. Here's how to structure yours.
Why narrative CVs
Traditional CVs over-weight publication counts and journal impact factors. Narrative CVs let you describe the full range of your contributions — research outputs, but also team building, mentorship, methods development, software contributions, peer review, public engagement, and contributions to research culture.
The R4RI structure (UKRI)
Four free-text modules of 250–400 words each:
- How you have contributed to the generation of knowledge — your research outputs (publications, datasets, software, models) and what they contributed.
- How you have contributed to the development of individuals — supervision, mentorship, teaching, training delivered.
- How you have contributed to the wider research community — peer review, editorial work, committee service, working group leadership, conference organisation.
- How you have contributed to broader society — public engagement, policy contributions, knowledge mobilisation, commercial translation, patient and public involvement.
How CRediT helps a narrative CV
CRediT-tagged contributions on your ORCID profile are excellent supporting evidence for narrative-CV claims. "Investigation: lead on 12 papers" and "Software: lead on 5 papers" tell a richer story than "co-author on 17 papers." When applying, link your ORCID iD in your CV and let the structured CRediT data corroborate the narrative.
Career-break inclusion
R4RI and equivalents explicitly invite disclosure of career breaks (parental, caring, illness, military service) and adjust expectations accordingly. CASRAI's mentorship-career-stages domain provides standardised vocabulary for these.
Funder formats
- UKRI R4RI — official guidance. Standard across UKRI from January 2024.
- Royal Society Résumé for Researchers — predecessor and sibling format.
- Wellcome narrative CV — Wellcome-specific adaptation.
- NIH biosketch — has a Personal Statement that functions narratively.
- ERC CV — European Research Council CV format.
- SciENcv — NSF format with narrative elements.
Template scaffolds for R4RI, Wellcome, and Royal Society formats are collected on the templates page.
Where the field is going
The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) — launched 2022, now 700+ signatories — commits its members to research-assessment reform. Narrative CVs are part of that. Expect more funders, hiring committees, and tenure panels to adopt similar formats in the coming years.
CASRAI Dictionary cross-references
- Responsible research assessment — vocabulary for R4RI, COARA, DORA, narrative CVs
- Mentorship, training, career stages — career-stage terms
- CRediT extensions — making hidden labour visible
